CITY COUNCIL: Water project hot topic

SAN ANGELO, Texas - With the ground still damp from overnight rains, talks about the Hickory Water Supply Project was still a key issue Tuesday for the City Council.

So far, said Ricky Dickson, director of Water Utilities, the 30-inch transmission main, the booster pump station and the well field piping are mostly complete. Once finished, the 62.4-mile pipeline has a projected capacity to pump 6 million gallons of water per day to San Angelo from the McCulloch County well fields.

"That's kind of where we're at, where we've been. This is where we're going," Dickson said, moving on to projects open for bids.

The city approved expansion of five additional wells, which is being advertised for bids and is expected to cost $7.5 million, Dickson said Tuesday. To equip the new wells with pumps and construct an additional pump at the booster pump station will likely cost $6.9 million, he said, and will be advertised for bids this fall.

Assigned funds, which have either been spent or committed to contracts, total more than $69.8 million, he said, and total remaining projects are estimated at $50 million, leaving a little more than $77,000 that the loan from the Texas Water Development Board financing the project won't cover.

As of late May, the projected substantial completion of the transmission main was set for July 16. The water treatment facility is expected to be complete August 2014.

Responding to a question from Councilman Don Vardeman, Dickson said the new wells — expected to produce about 6 million gallons per day — would get San Angelo through 2026.

In what may have been the last time he can voice his opinion as a council member, Kendall Hirschfeld strongly urged city staff and the council to focus on expanding the well field.

"We've got to have those five wells," he said. "In the worst-case scenario, we are in deep, deep, deep trouble. So I urge you and I urge the council to keep focus on the well field expansion."

While he was supportive of the city's efforts to seek other viable water sources, such as the use of effluent water, any of them will take a long time, Hirschfeld said. Most large undertakings require permits and approvals by the Texas Water Development Board and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, as well as lengthy bid processes.

The water treatment plant that has been slated for completion in fall 2014 will involve treatment of the radiation, through an ion exchange process that passes the water through a charged medium to remove the particles. Radium is a radioactive element that occurs in all rocks and soil.

The Environmental Protection Agency has an approved radiation limit of 5 picocuries per liter of water. Formations in the Hickory Aquifer cause a radiation level about seven times the EPA recommended limit, at an average of 35 picocuries per liter.

Drinking a half-gallon of radiated water above the recommended limit every day for 70 years could increase the rate of cancer in two of every 10,000 cases, according to the TCEQ.

Officials have received some criticism for approving the radiated supply while the treatment facility won't come online for another year. At this time the city is to blend the Hickory water with what's left of existing water supplies.

"Even the 6 million gallons per day is not enough to barely flush your toilet," Hirschfeld said. "It gets to the point, I don't care what people think of the Hickory water — it's water."

In the interest of preserving supplies, Councilwoman Charlotte Farmer again called for a more aggressive approach to the city's conservation efforts.

Last September, when the city was poised to enter drought level 3 — which restricts all outdoor watering — a weekend deluge brought the city back into drought level 1, which allows outdoor watering twice weekly.

Despite pleas from concerned residents, the council was unable to stop the city from going into drought level 1 because ordinances require its implementation when water supplies hit 24 months.

Revising the ordinance could allow the council flexibility to implement more stringent drought level restrictions.

Several members of the audience clapped at Farmer's statement for more aggressive conservation.

In other action, the council unanimously approved the renaming of Rio Vista Park, in the 2700 block of Ben Ficklin Road, as Jaime Padron Memorial Park in honor of a fallen officer who served as a San Angelo police officer for 14 years before he went to the Austin Police Department and died in the line of duty.

City Manager Daniel Valenzuela also presented an update to the council regarding the progress of the housing and temporary housing subcommittee meetings.

The groups were created to address issues regarding housing and recreational vehicle parks during the anticipated Cline Shale boom.